


Snake Oil

by Ultramarine316



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Mystery, Pining, Protective Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-11-27 08:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20945198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultramarine316/pseuds/Ultramarine316
Summary: When Aziraphale begins to suffer from a mysterious affliction, Crowley has to use his not at all impressive detective skills to figure out who or what is behind it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place before the Armagedon't.
> 
> ((Thanks to dr-harleen-quinzell for beta reading.))

Chapter 1

The bell above the shop door chimed to herald Crowley's arrival. Aziraphale's bookshop welcomed him with it's usual wave of odors. The sweet smell of old paper was prominent, as was dust gently baking in the shafts of late afternoon sunlight that fell from half closed windows set high in the walls. There was also a competing dankness issuing from some unseen place, with hints of basement, cave aged cheese, and compost. Crowley knew it was meant to be a deterrent to the casual browser but it is the nature of smells that they easily swap sides from mildly unpleasant to strangely pleasant, when given the chance to become familiar.

Crowley struck a pose of studied nonchalance, leaning against a book shelf in a way he was sure looked cool and fetching, and held it for several moments until it became clear that Aziraphale either hadn't heard the bell or was engrossed in something he deemed more important than rushing out to welcome Crowley. The demon had no choice but to take his show on the road and saunter to the back rooms that served as Aziraphale's office.

He was about to sing out and demand to know what was more tempting than going to dinner with him, Anthony J. Crowley, when he was struck silent by the sight of Aziraphale slumped over and shaking slightly on his rococo revival fainting couch.

Crowley was with him in a moment, kneeling at his side and trying to gauge the situation with gentle questions.

“Where's it hurt?”

“My head and...I feel rather strange.”

“What happened?”

“No, no. Nothing happened– I just--since this morning I think- Ah! This is...tedious,” Aziraphale said rubbing his forehead, above his right eye and wincing. “I had planned to-”

The angel's skin was hot and damp. There were no visible wounds of any kind but he was shivering, from pain or fever and the broken speech was worrying. Crowley gently moved Aziraphale's hand away from his head and placed his own there.

“Here, let me try.”

Crowley's touch was as light as feathers but Aziraphale's pain fled before it, leaving behind only the sudden absence of pain, a glorious sensation which the English language has yet to produce an adequate name for, Aziraphale realized. He sank somehow even deeper into the couch and expelled one long breath.

“Did--has that got it?” Crowley asked.

“Yes, dear boy, that is worlds better,” Aziraphale allowed himself one more moment of cloud like bliss before forcing his mind back to the problem at hand. “What on Earth was that about?”

“A migraine?” ventured Crowley, who had been too focused on getting the pain to go away immediately to formulate any theories about its cause. “Or the flu?”

“I suppose,” Aziraphale allowed.

Their bodies weren't invulnerable to damage, of course, but miracling away that damage was usually as easy as brushing a bit of lint off of his suit. Aziraphale had felt the _beginnings_ of a headache many times before; it was apparently a human body's way of telling one that one should take a break from, say, staring at a page so ancient that the ink has mellowed to a brown barely darker than the golden creamy velum it was written on. That one should put the delightful book down, stretch, and perhaps drink a glass of water. Fortunately, Aziraphale's angelic nature allowed him to silence such annoying suggestions with barely the flick of a perfectly manicured finger and read on. So why not today?

“What a terrible waste of a day,” Aziraphale sighed. “Is it possible that the pain was so sudden and so acute that I was simply too distracted by it to remove it?”

“Was it that bad?” Crowley sat next to Aziraphale and helped him sit up.

“It was bad but, honestly, I've been stabbed before and I was still able to focus enough to heal myself then,” Aziraphale waved off Crowley's look of concern; this had been ages ago, back when humans had first invented stabbing and were all simply going around stabbing each other. “And I _was_ thinking about healing myself. I could hardly think about anything but healing myself. So why wasn't I able to?”

Crowley's wince of sympathy was clear even behind his sunglasses and he was nervously kneading the fabric at Aziraphale's shoulder. So Aziraphale took both of Crowley's hands in his own to still them.

“There now, it's over. Thank you for helping me, my dear boy. Truly.” Aziraphale soothed, his still over warm hands squeezed Crowley's in a way that never failed to turn the demon's spine into a receptor for every positive sensation in the world all at once, heat and cold and electricity shooting up and down his back one after the other, too rapidly to be identified.

“Are you up to some dinner?” Crowley asked. “Might be just the thing! Or do you need tea and a lie down?”

“Perhaps-,” Aziraphale started but then winced.” Oh! Ouch--oh dear...not again...” Aziraphale fretted and began to rub at his head. Crowley knocked Aziraphale's hand out of the way with is own and performed a second healing. Again, the pain evaporated like dew but this time the angel was more miffed than relieved.

“Alright now really! What the – what in heaven's name!” he huffed.

Crowley was also becoming miffed, though being a demon, he would not have used that word to describe himself. He stood up so that he would be free to pace and gesticulate as much as he needed to to release his agitation.

“If this is another demon, I am going to be bloody... I have made it extremely clear that..-” Crowley turned to Aziraphale with a genuinely apologetic look. “I really have, Angel. I've told downstairs that I have a very sensitive project going on in London and that other demons barging in would blow the whole thing.”

“I don't think it's another demon. I think I would pick up on a demonic presence.”

“What else could it be? There isn't any natural explanation, unless you've suddenly developed a catastrophically violent allergy to old books after 6,000 years.”

“My dear! Don't even joke!”

“So if there's no natural explanation, there's an occult one.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps occult, but not demonic. Now that I have cause to think of it, there was a small, ah, incident recently. Three youths, who I believe I recognized as working in the record shop down the street, came in a few mornings ago but I was in the middle of a chapter so I did not respond immediately. By the time I finished, they had gone. It was then that I noticed that one of my very favorite bookmarks, which I know had been left in the fourth best copy of 'An Ideal Husband', which was out on the counter, was gone!”

“A bookmark?”

“I've had it for a very long time. It was, in fact, made from a scrap of fabric from an old tunic, which had been a favorite of mine for an even longer time... It had been cut down from a toga which had been a favorite for a long time before that. I did not think anything of it at the time, but a practitioner of the unsavory arts could do a lot with an item of such personal significance.”

“Yes, I suppose they could, if one were to leave such items laying carelessly about everywhere, which, frankly, sound like a terrible idea. And if one recognized such items for what they were instead of assuming they were just random scraps of fabric, as any casual visitor to the shop would.”

“Well, I don't know,” Aziraphale pouted. “I'm sure it was there when I closed the night before, because I'd been reading that book, and then they were the only customers I'd had so far, and then I noticed that it was missing, so that seems suspicious to me.”

“I guess,” Crowley sighed. “It's, theoretically possible that some random teens are fucking around with the occult in order to revenge themselves on you for you, frankly, abysmal customer service... but it feels like a long shot. Especially compared to my theory, which is that there are some demons who are complete pricks and who can not follow simple instructions, which is actually a scientifically proven fact.”

“Mmph...”, Aziraphale shrank back against the couch. “Ah! For- Crowley, it's happening again--would you...be a lamb and-?”

Crowley performed a third miracle and this time in addition to just thinking about seeing Aziraphale well again, also decided that any curse hanging about could go ahead and fuck off too. Curses were not an area of expertise for Crowley and he had no idea if this had any effect or even if he should have expected some kind of indication if it was effective.

“Well, something is clearly wrong,” Aziraphale said, breathing heavy and sounding a bit defeated, or at least temporarily stymied. “Something is going on. This isn't just a one time fluke.”

“I'll stay here tonight,” Crowley said without thinking, and then, to make up for it, immediately thought a lot, all at once, about how that had sounded and how Aziraphale would take it the wrong way. “I'll stay and keep it from coming back, I mean, so that you can get some rest. I know, I know, you don't need to sleep, but you've been through the ringer today and I think it couldn't hurt to rest up. Then, I'll pop over to the record shop as soon as it opens, and sort out the little cultists, alright?”

“Yes, alright Crowley. That's actually rather lovely of you to offer,” the angel said, beaming at him.

Within moments, pajamas and blankets were manifested, all tartan. Aziraphale had no bed but said the fainting couch would do perfectly well so a comfortable chair was pulled up next to it to allow Crowley

to keep an eye and a hand on Aziraphale. Aziraphale, for his part, must have been even more exhausted than he let on and was fast asleep in no time.

This left Crowley with a lot of time to think, not to mention worry. Crowley prided himself on being a very modern sort of demon and it was not modern to worry about someone with the flu or a bad headache. A modern person threw some over the counter medication at those things and, perhaps, took a day off of work but usually felt bad about doing even that much. Of course, Crowley had also lived through the thousands of years when sick beds very quickly and easily turned into death beds.

He also speculated wildly about which demon or demons might be involved, because he didn't give a used handkerchief for Aziraphale's bookmark theory. Of course, it was pure paranoia to think that some demon was targeting Aziraphale not simply because it would earn them some kudos from Hell, but specifically to fuck with Crowley, after somehow discovering that the angel was the object of Crowley's several millennia long secret pinning. But Crowley was, after all, 50% paranoia, so that is what he was half sure must be happening.

The other 50% was secret pinning, which he may have also spent some time indulging. After all, the chance to look at Aziraphale's face as much as he wanted, without having to worry about being caught doing it, didn't come along every day. He kept up a steady motion all night, running a hand from the angel's brow up to his hair, banishing any hint of pain each time, until the first rays of morning light began to leak in through the windows.

All at once, the bookshop was filled with light. Not the soft first rays of dawn but a harsh supernatural glare. A trumpet blared, sending Aziraphale sitting bolt upright and Crowley scrambling up a ladder attached to a very tall bookcase. A figure formed in the light and a voice proclaimed:

“Be not afraid brother Aziraphale! I have heard your prayers and am here to end thy suffering!”


	2. Chapter 2

Aziraphale scrambled into a sitting position. He was not used to sleeping and therefore not used to the disorientation of waking up, so he might have been a little confused even if he had awoken naturally. The fact that he had been pulled from a dead sleep by a booming voice offering to end his suffering and a sudden flash of light was practically enough to end his suffering via heart attack. He put one hand over his hammering heart and the other over his blinded eyes and then remembered Crowley. Good, God where was Crowley? Squinting between his fingers, Aziraphale saw no sign of him. His chair was right there but the demon had bolted up a very tall ladder, like a cat up a tree at the first bark of a strange dog, and was now perched atop it wide eyed and unseen.

The figure in the light approached and the light _finally_ began to fade to a natural level.

“Brother Aziraphale,” it was another angel, but not one he thought he recognized. He was perhaps a bit fitter than average and blandly handsome with shoulder length wheat hair and a high forehead. He was dressed in a taupe suit with a milky blue dress shirt and Aziraphale had the intuition that this was an angel who hoped to be mistaken for someone higher up in Heaven's hierarchy than he really was. “Heaven has heard your prayers and has sent me to answer them.”

“My prayers?”

“Yes, heaven has heard your great distress and your prayers for intercession.”

“Oh, yes, yes! My prayers!” Affirmed Aziraphale, whose head was beginning to hurt again, though now from a different cause. Perhaps Aziarphale had sent up a silent prayer for help sometime in the morning, but if that was what this angel was referring to, then someone had let an awful lot of time go by before processing that request. “And, ah, what did you say your name was again?”

“I am Rigel, healing angel of mercy. I will take away thy suffering!” Declared the new angel, before slapping his palm against Aziraphale's forehead with enough force to rock his head back. There was an awkward pause.

“Oh, oh yes, I think that's done it!” cried Aziraphale. “I was in, just, such agony until a moment ago, but that's cleared it right up! Incidentally, you couldn't speculate at what may have caused it, could you?”

“Hmm,” Rigel considered. “I am sensing...a demonic presence...”

Aziraphale saw Crowley fall past a window outside. He had evidently crept along the top of the bookcase, gotten one of the narrow upper windows open and made his escape. There was a muffled crash as he landed on some bins in the alley below.

“Demonic!” Aziraphale cried, aghast. “Here?!”

*************

Crowley sprang to his feet and booked it back to the Bentley, which remained miraculously un-ticketed on the street outside the shop. Ok, this was good, he assured his adrenal gland as he slid into the drivers seat, this really unnecessarily loud new angel would stay with Aziraphale and keep him comfortable, while Crowley figured out who, in Hell, was responsible.

His first stop was at his apartment to pick up a few things. His second was a butcher's shop, to pick up a few more things. His final stop was at an abandoned church about an hour outside of London. This church had seen better days; it had been the spiritual hub of an unexceptional small town until a tragic fire in the 50's. Crowley was not at all clear on the details, but had happened to see it once and had mentally bookmarked it as a very likely spot, should he ever need it.

Fortunately, he never had before now. When Hell wanted to communicate with Crowley, it knew where to find him and it knew about a hundred and one unsettling ways to do it. These days, it mostly just commandeered whatever program Crowley was watching on TV or listening to on the radio, which was bad. But honestly, it wasn't nearly as bad as when they used to commandeer whatever _person_ Crowley was talking to at the moment. When they called, Crowley reported what he had to report. He tended not to seek out additional opportunities to speak directly with anyone at the home office beyond that and was content to just send memos.

Still, he had a couple important phone number jotted down, metaphorically speaking, just in case he ever needed them. To get this particular demon to take his call, Crowley would have to do a little more than dial the right extension. He would have to make sure everything was just perfect, starting with the ambiance, which the burnt out church had in spades, on what was shaping up to be a cold, grey day.

He unpacked several items from a cardboard box marked “Stuff”, which until recently had been in the back of a closet in his apartment. There was a bundle of (very) dried herbs, a mirror that was really nothing but a copper disk with an inscription on one side in a language that only a handful of living humans would have been able to identify let alone read, the skull of a wild boar, several candles made from an unusual black beeswax, and a silver lobstered gauntlet set with four garnets. He drew the required signs and circles on the floor and placed the items within it. Then he pulled two gallons of cows blood from the butchers bag. This is not precisely what the invocation called for, but Crowley was of the firm belief that it was like substituting table salt in a recipe that called for freshly ground pink salt from the highest peaks of the Himalayan mountains; no one could actually taste the difference anyway.

He poured the blood over the skull and watched as it drained into the ground with unnatural speed, which meant that the phone was ringing. Black smoke poured from the ground and up through the empty eye sockets of the skull, at first simply rushing upwards to where the burnt roof timbers opened like a mouth full of fangs and up into the roiling clouds. After a moment though, the smoke seemed to lift the boar skull off the ground. It was raised until it hovered a few centimeters above Crowley's face. (No matter who the summoner had been, this demon would always manifest to be a bit taller, just as a matter of course.) The smoke became a pillar for the skull to rest upon and then it slowly resolved into a suit of black armor with, presumably, a body of some kind inside.

Red eyes opened inside of what had been empty sockets and a tongue was visible when the skull demand “Who summons Abdilon, breaker of sleep, author of the secret torment, keeper of expense accounts?”

Crowley waved a hand feebly. “Yeah, right here, um... hey.”

“Crowley,” the other demon said. Abdilon had a fantastic memory for names and personal details, which can be an intimidating quality, in the right hands. “Crowley...what has it been, 2,073 years, 8 months and ten days? You've done something with your hair.”

“Um, yeah, I suppose I have--”

“Still big into chariot racing?”

“Oh, not so much anymore...” Crowley had not seen Abdilon since the last time he had been inconveniently discorporated, an incident that had put an end to a brief flirtation with what passed for driving at the time.

“Good, good...well, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Well, the thing is, I was just wondering if you could tell me who's been issued with a body recently.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Crowley licked his lips. “Has there been anyone new sent up to England recently.”

“Are we being a bit territorial Crowley?”

“There's been a bit of a – well, bit of a cock up, I'm afraid. I've got some projects in, you know, in the early stages here, and I can't have some new transfer... buggering the whole thing up.” Crowley explained very clearly and professionally.

Abdilon's chuckle reverberated around the bones of the church. “You amuse me Crowley. I haven't issued a new body in the last century and a half. Whatever 'cock-ups' have occurred, they are of your own making.”

“Well what about,” Crowley cast his mind about for every demon he's ever had the misfortune of running into topside who might still be rocking a human form and might, conceivably, have some kind of beef with him. “Hastur or Ligur or,” who was that _weird_ fucker? “Or Paimon?”

“What, are we gossiping now? Alright. I know for a fact that Ligur hasn't been out of Hell since around the time humans figured out how germs work. Said that Earth just hasn't been any fun since. Hastur is pretty occupied with a project of his own down here, so I doubt it's him, and Paimon is still working some kind of cult angle in America-- although...now that I think about it...I suppose there's Spispirior.”

“Spispirior?”

“She's been on Earth for a while, bouncing around, but she's in the area now and talk around the water cooler is that she's been formally reprimanded. Needs to bring up her numbers of she'll be recalled. Maybe she's been poaching your souls.”

“Maybe,” Crowley agreed. It would take a fairly desperate demon to attack an angel, especially in a way that was going to just piss it off instead of killing it. Or did that mean that whatever was happening to Aziraphale really was more serious than it seemed? “Any idea where she'd be now?”

Abdilon thought he did know at that, and gave Crowley the best directions that a being who only visited the Earth's surface a handful of times in the last Millennia could.

"Oh, and when you see her, ask her if she remembers the Christmas in July party," Abdilon said. Than he thanked Crowley for the blood of a Christian child, which, he said, had been delicious, and took his leave, sinking back into the ground like a filthy liquid.

*****************

It was several more hours before Crowley located the place Abdilon had described. It looked to all the world like a shabby sort of new age shop in a middle sized town. There was a picture of Stonehenge on the sign, though they were not particularly close to the Stonehenge.

The shop was dimly lit but the door opened without any occult interference from Crowley so he assumed it must be open. The shelves were unusually sparse for the kind of shop it was supposed to be. There weren't any statutes of fairies, or tarot cards, or racks of bohemian jewelry on offer. Only a few sad crystals and dusty vials of colored water that seemed to be there to give the place the barest appearance of being a business. This was, Crowley realized at once, one of those little convenience stores that actually did it's business selling drugs out of the back room. Except he didn't think it was a bit of marijuana that was being bought and sold here.

He followed the sound of voices to a half closed door. Peaking inside, he saw two women sitting at an old card table.

“He said that after the last time too,” said the one on the left, who seemed like she had been crying for a while and was not even close to being done crying. “And you said that the potion would bring him back to me!”

“And did it?” The other woman crossed her arms and appeared to be barely interested in the conversation.

“I—yes, for a little while it did and everything was fine again. Everything was wonderful! But it- it must have worn off! And now he's out with – with that woman again! I know he is!”

“Hmmm, very likely.”

“You didn't tell me it was going to wear off!”

“No? Didn't I? Are you quite sure? My, how absentminded of me...So you want more of the potion?”

“No! I don't want something that's just going to wear off again!”

“Ah, well then, best of luck to you in your romantic endeavors. If there's nothing else, I _am_ going to be closing up soon...”

“But—no! Don't you have anything else? I need something that will make him stay and that won't wear off! Please! There's got to be something else!”

“Welllll, I suppose there is one other thing,” if the substance of their conversation hadn't already given away which one was the demon Crowley was looking for, the woman's snear would have.

Crowley chose that moment to gently push the door the rest of the way open. “Yeah, sorry to interrupt ladies, but there's an Enya CD I've been trying to track down for ages and I thought I'd pop in and see if you had a copy.” He tipped his sunglasses low enough to give Spispirior a glimpse of his eyes.

“Come back later,” she said at the other woman. “Tomorrow. I require time to gather my magical energies.”

“But--”

“I said fuck off,” she snapped and the other woman stumbled past Crowley and out the shop door. “Well? Who the hell are you and why the hell are you interrupting my work?”

“Anthony J. Crowley. I don't believe we've ever met. And you are Spispirior?”

“Yes,” she agreed with hesitation. “Not—not the Crowley behind the Spanish Inquisition?”

“Well, guilty.”

“Um, tea?” She asked. “Why don't we move to my kitchen?”

They did, although it wasn't much of an improvement over the shop. An old Formica kitchenette set and a bin overflowing with empty vodka bottles and microwavable pizza boxes where the only adornments. Crowley wasn't sure if she was doing an incredible job of camouflaging herself as a lonely middle aged human or if she actually was just very depressed.

“No cats?” Crowley asked, unable to entirely stop himself from being an asshole.

“Cats? Oh, you mean for company...how droll. They only live a few years, so what's the point?”

Crowley seated himself at the table while Spispirior started rummaging through cabinets, presumably looking for tea or cups.

“Out of curiosity,” Crowley asked, “If I hadn't rudely interrupted you a moment ago, you weren't about to pull out a yellowed old scroll and a quill pen and ask her to sign away her soul in her own blood, were you? Because you know it doesn't work that way anymore?”

“Of course not. I was going to hand her a 'magic' knife and tell her that gaining her hearts desire would require a 'sacrifice'. Same difference," she moved to the other side of the kitchen and looked through a drawer. "But of course, if downstairs really wanted me to bring in more souls, they would just let me do it the old fashioned way. It's amazing how many balk at the idea of a little blood and it's usually the ones I was sure were in the bag too!”

“Humans can be pretty unpredictable. Incidentally, I was just chatting with someone recently, and he did mention something about—uh--about accounting being a little unreasonable about your numbers lately. Said you had some reason to be concerned about being recalled even--”

“How can they expect me to leave all this?” she ask sarcastically and nudged a pile of pizza boxes aside to reach another cabinet.

It occurred to Crowley that Spispirior was, in a way, what Crowley would have been if he hadn't had Aziraphale to while away the long Millennia with. She wanted to stay on Earth because she was terrified of returning to Hell but she didn't appreciate Earth the way Crowley did. Because you couldn't quite enjoy a thing the same way by yourself. You needed someone to reflect with. To say 'can you believe this?' and have them say 'I'm equally shocked and delighted' or else it wasn't quite as real somehow. Excitement couldn't survive if it stayed inside of just one person. It really had to be passed back and forth to fan the flames.

Maybe if Crowley had been without that for such a long time, he would have gotten boarded with the whole thing too. Resigned himself to just shuffling around a pokey little backwater, doing the absolute bare minimum of work it took to keep from being recalled. Picking off the occasional low hanging fruit, the humans who were desperate and foolish enough to practically damn themselves.

Spispirior chose that moment to sneak up behind Crowley and hit him over the head with something heavy and as he blacked out, Crowley decided that even if he hadn't had Aziraphale, he still probably wouldn't have become that much of an asshole though.


	3. Chapter 3

Crowley came to in a basement. It wasn't a torture basement, so that was good. Just your typical unfinished basement, with a few dusty boxes and a washer/drier. There was also a large circle of ancient sigils drawn on the floor all around Crowley. In fact, Spispirior seemed to just be finishing it up as Crowley slowly reacquainted himself with the waking world. There was a snap of electricity as she closed the circle, making her jerk her hand away with a yelp. Well, that was good too; it meant he hadn't been unconscious all that long, although it would have been significantly more good if he'd woken up in time to stop her from finishing it. Now he was fucked, he realized, and thrashed to his feet.

“Oh, poor little Crowley” Spispirior muttered. “You thought you were going to get a gold star for dragging me back to Hell. You didn't think I'd put up a fight and now here you are! Serves you right.”

“I didn't come here to take you back to Hell,” Crowley insisted.

“Bullshit..”

“I swear to whomever that I only came here to see if you had been messing with—if you'd been in London recently.”

She didn't feel the need to reply. She had a suitcase with her and she began to look through the clothes in the drier, occasionally pulling something out and stuffing it in the suitcase.

“There's an angel in London,” Crowley tried again. “Who I am working on—corrupting.”

No reply.

“But someone, another demon, has started messing with this angel and that's really—a problem for my evil plan--”

“Well it wasn't me,” she snorted. She pulled out a shirt, considered it for a moment before stuffing it back into the drier. “I'm not going to go looking for that kind of trouble. Do I look like someone who goes looking for trouble?”

“No, no. This has been a big mix up, is what I'm saying. I only stopped here because Abdilon thought it could be you. But he was clearly way off base--”

“Abdilon?”

“Yeah! And he told me- he told me to ask you about the Christmas in July party?”

“What?! Is he still pissed off about that?”

“Er-”

“So he sent you because of that? I have been doing my fucking best up here, I really have, and he's still pissed off about something that happened back in--? I only said that it was kind of weird that Abdilon-- and then someone else pointed out that he had missed those three meetings--I didn't know it was going to get back to anyone important--”

_Oh no_, Crowley thought, _other people's interpersonal drama_. Bad enough that he had let himself be led off on a wild goose chase. Bad enough that he was no closer to saving Aziraphale and was wasting time in this depressing basement. Now he had gotten himself mixed up in two other people's drama on top of it all.

“-and the whole thing could have dropped right there and then! He's the one—He is the one who had to go and --

“I see,” said Crowley, trying like hell to give the appearance of caring. “Seems like an honest mistake...”

“But then Barza asked Milocki about it and of course Milocki just couldn't keep his huge mouths shut-- No, he has to go and tell Barza and also everyone else in the whole--”

“Maybe if you were to let me go, I could explain it to Abdilon--”

“Nice try,” she snapped.“I'm getting out of the country and I don't need you telling anyone that I've moved. But don't worry, nothing lasts forever; this spell will probably run out of power in a couple hundred years or so. And I've even left you some light reading.” There was a little pile of aspirational home design magazines from the 70's as well as what appeared to be one magazine for ferret enthusiasts inside the circle.

Spispirior picked up her suitcase and headed up the stairs. “And don't even think about coming after me when you get out because I won't be so nice next time.” She turned just enough to give Crowley a self satisfied smirk and then slammed the basement door behind her.

“Fuck,” said Crowley. The circle was only paint but he physically couldn't touch it. Not even with a rolled up magazine. He couldn't use any of his demonic powers either. Otherwise he could have burst a pipe and washed it away. Set a fire that would burn it away. Shattered the windows and hope someone would investigate. “Hello!” he shouted. “Hello!” He paused and waited but there was no answer. He could shout himself hoarse and no one would hear.

He examined what he had to work with. The magazines, glossy paper and staples, and the cloths on his back. And that was it. Could he...discorporate himself with that stuff? Death by paper cut? It wasn't an appealing idea, but neither was being trapped down here for a couple hundred years or until the house collapsed on top of him, whichever happened first. And in the meantime—in the meantime whatever malevolent entity was targeting Aziraphale was no closer to being stopped. It might try something worse. It might even kill Aziraphale. Aziraphale only had that other angel for protection and Crowley didn't like that idea. The other angel wouldn't be any use. Or else he would be. Aziraphale would think Crowley had just gone off somewhere and left him. By the time Crowley got out, Aziraphale would be feeding the ducks with his new best friend. Or he would be dead.

A soft rustling sound interrupted Crowley's melancholic train of thought, which was just as well, as it had just made a complete tour of the available track and was only going to circle around and around in the same unhappy loop. There was a mouse in the corner. A little grey one with sparkling black eyes. It froze when Crowley looked its way.

Very slowly, he lowered his sunglasses. He didn't have any demonic powers but he still had his demonic form including his hypnotic serpent's eyes. He looked into the mouses eyes.

“Come to me,” he whispered. The mouse ran back into the dark from whence it came. “Fuck! Fucking fuck!”

The mouse peeked nervously back out at him and Crowley abruptly ceased his shouting.

“I mean...come here please little mouse,” he tried again. The mouse took one step closer. “That's it. That's a good little mouse.” The mouse stayed where it was. “That's a sweet little mouse...” The mouse took another step. This mouse, Crowley soon realized, had a very high opinion of itself. It was only though the most lavish praise, tenderly cooed to the little beast that Crowley was able to convince it to move step by itty-bitty step closer to the circle.

“Thaaaaat's it, that's my beautiful, intelligent wonderful little mouse.” Little step. “That's my—my sweet little mouse.” No movement. It had heard that one already. You can do better, it's little eyes seemed to say. “That's my—adorable little honey baby.” Little step. “With the—the cutest little whiskers?” Step.

What had, for a moment, seemed like it might still be a cool escape, was turning out to be much more of a fairy-tale princess thing, but you can't argue with results. Even if getting the mouse to nibble on the circle enough to break it required Crowley to actually sing sweetly to it.

*************

Crowley burst into the record store and froze everyone with a snap of the fingers. He was in no mood. No mood at all for any more BS from anyone and that especially included any annoying little occultists. But since his leads had yielded absolutely nothing, except for the chance to spend several hours sweet talking a rodent, checking out the record shop was the only next step he could think of. Only then did he asses his surroundings. The shop was empty except for a couple browsing through a sale bin and three young people clustered about the register area.

They must be the “three youths” Aziraphale had been talking about, but they were so far from what Crowley had been expecting that he also found himself frozen for a moment. He had assumed they would be dressed punk or goth or in some way that would have read as threatening to the fashion backwards angel. But these three could not have looked less threatening if they had been fashioned out of yarn.

For starters, they all looked too young to be employed at all. There was a girl with braces and bib overalls with a large pink heart as a front pocket, a boy wearing a button down shirt with a pattern of sweet little turtles on it over a Phineas and Ferb t-shirt, and an androgynous teen with a large tattoo of an otter wearing a sunhat and contemplating a potted daisy plant with a look of dreamy contentment. What's more, Crowley had interrupted them in the act of making a poster promoting a fundraiser for a local animal shelter the shop was participating in. They had been using a trulley excessive amount of glitter glue and stickers and none of them was unmarked by their activity. The girl had a sticker of a kitten's face directly on her nose and the boy had an entire family of duck stickers residing in his hi-top. The androgynous one had glittery freckles in every color of the rainbow.

“Er-OK-hi,” Crowley ventured.

“Good afternoon welcome to Ink and Vinyl used and new records and gifts,” the girl murmured out of force of habit. “Let us know if we can help you find anything.”

“Right, did you lot go into the book store over there recently?”

“Yes,” said the androgynous teen. “Mr. Fell's shop.”

“And did you take anything while you were there?”

“No,” said the boy.

“I took a flier for the Lupus walk,” the girl said.

“A bookmark I mean. Did any of you notice a bookmark?”

None of them said anything and Crowley got the distinct feeling that, despite the fact that he was compelling them to speak the truth, they were staying quiet to spare his feelings.

“In the book store, do you mean, sir?” the boy finally asked.

“Yes, did any of you _take_ a bookmark from the shop. It would have been made of fabric.”

“No,” they all shook their heads.

“Could the other guy have taken it?” Asked the androgynous teen.

“What other guy?”

“He was kind of tall. Wearing a tan suit.. Had kind of a fivehead,” They supplied.

Crowley froze. “Did he have shoulder length hair?”

“Yeah,” they all nodded.

“I thought he looked a little like Michael Bolton,” the boy said.

“Not really,” the girl frowned.

“And he was in there a few days ago?” It was the new angel, Rigel. “What the hell was he doing in Aziraphale's shop?” Crowley asked himself.

“looking for a book?”

“No,” said the girl. “He was being-- sneaky like. When Mr. Fell peaked out to see who had come in, he hid.”

“Thanks kids,” Crowley snapped his fingers to break the spell and raced out the front door.

The three kids blinked out of their stupor. The whole conversation had seemed to them as if the bookshop owner's boyfriend had barged into their shop by mistake and then, realizing his error, turned right around and fucking sprinted away towards the bookshop at top speed without so much as a word. They all mentally shrugged, having all done something equally awkward in recent memory, and returned to the business of flirting with each other by slowly covering one another with glitter and stickers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I threw a lot of OCs into this, so there would be some suspects...I hope that wasn't super annoying. 
> 
> The book mentions that Hastur and Ligur are not really typical demons; most of them are just average people who don't particularly enjoy doing demonic things...which would suck. So that's where Spispirior came from. (Also I just read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine for bookclub, so she's also a little bit Eleanor Oliphant as a demon?)


	4. Chapter 4

Crowley stopped just short of flinging open the front door of the shop and went around to a window that would give him a good view of the back rooms instead. There was Aziraphale, still sitting on that same fainting couch. He looked fine. He was reading a book. Crowley's heart ratcheted down it's frantic beating. But Aziraphale wasn't safe with that other angel, who was definitely up to something.

He was probably going to have his work cut out for him convincing Aziraphale of that though. It would never occur to Aziraphale that one of his own kind was capable of hurting him.

At a thought, the window slid open and Crowley literally slithered through it. He didn't retake his human form until he was right next to Aziraphale.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale gasped, rising at once to his feet. “Oh thank—thank everyone! Listen, Rigel is up to something! It's a Munchhausen byproduct—by proxy--”

“He's doing it!” Crowley blurted. “He—um....yeah.”

“As near as I can tell, he angered someone important and is desperate to be out of Heaven until it blows over. I've been trying to get more of the story out of him, but he's cagey. This whole thing, I think, is a ploy to make it seem like he's needed on Earth. He want's me to contact upstairs,” Aziraphale's eyes slid to a collection of candles and other materials needed to contact Heaven that had been assembled on a table. “He wants me to tell them that I need him here as my personal physician, if you can believe it.”

Aziraphale had gone ahead and been useful while Crowley was off on a wild goose chase. Crowley was immensely relived; getting Aziraphale to accept the idea that Rigel was the villain of the piece wasn't going to be the stumbling block he had imagined it would be. Never mind that he hadn't gotten any further than that in his plan. He simultaneously wanted to sag to his knees and to scoop Aziraphale into a hug and never let go but settled for putting his hand on Aziraphale's back, the better to hurry him out of this situation.

“Let's get out of here,” Crowley urged, whipping his head around, in search of an exit. The window he came in through wouldn't do for someone who wasn't a snake.

“Wait Crowley. He's using something of mine as a focus. I've seen him reach into his pocket for it right before—but the shop is full of things that I have an emotional connection to, so it isn't as if getting it away from him would do any good either. If we just went off and left him in possession of the shop, he would still be able to target me.”

It was true; where Crowley's flat was a minimalist's wet dream, Aziraphale's shop was packed to the rafters with junk that wasn't junk at all because it gave Aziraphale a warm glow every time his eyes landed on it. Things he'd had for centuries, mementos of historical events he'd lived through, and knickknacks he'd picked up just the other day because they had struck him as somehow just right; the whole place was a treasure trove, if you were interested in sentimental value.

“What do we do then?”

“I have been trying to talk him down, as it were....if it comes to it I'm afraid I may have to contact heaven, without him listening in, and ask them to deal with him—I hate to contemplate doing such a thing though.”

“Angel, he doesn't seem to feel any qualms about hurting you when you'd never done anything to him!”

“My dear-- you of all people know what it would mean if--”

“If upstairs decides he deserves to fall for what he did to you? Good! Toss him into the lake of fire! I'll write a note to my people suggesting some ways to make him feel welcome.”

“It's not something I would wish on my worst enemy,” Aziraphale murmured and touched Crowley's face tenderly. Crowley realized that despite still having his hand on Aziraphale's back for to purpose of pushing him towards an exit, the angel had gently lead him to a door leading into another room.

“Will you let me talk to him, for just a bit longer? And will you think up some kind of a diversion, if it does come to that? But wait until I tell you! Then get him out of the shop, and yourself as well.”

“I'll divert him right into a fucking wall, if he hurts you again,” Crowley hissed, but did as he was asked and concealed himself off stage right.

“My dear,” Aziraphale chided softly and took a moment to close his eyes and calm his fluttering heart. Crowley didn't know, Aziraphale thought to himself, what it did to him when the demon played at being Aziraphale's white knight like this. Black knight. Whichever. It was just habit at this point, nothing more. He had turned on the charm, once upon a time, to get Aziraphale around to the idea of the arrangement, convince him that a wily serpent could be trusted. But he had left the charm running since then, sweeping into the shop to whisk Aziraphale away to dinner, pretending to be outraged on Aziraphale's behalf when he aired any minor grievance about his superiors...well, the charm was rather overflowing onto the floors these days. Which was to say, Aziraphale was already as besotted as an entity could get. Crowley really couldn't have any idea what he did to Aziraphale's poor heart when he acted that way; he wasn't cruel. Aziraphale should tell him, but he wasn't going to. Heaven forbid he should loose this.

“Aziraphale?” Rigel threw the door open. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“Oh! There was a customer! A human, you know. Didn't see that the shop is closed. I sent him away.”

Rigel frowned. “You shouldn't be out of bed. You're not feeling well.”

Indeed, as he said it, Aziraphale found that he didn't feel well, though he kept mum about it as he made his way back to his seat.

“Quite right,” Aziraphale murmured. “I'll stay here.”

Crowley listened intently to their conversation, all the while feeling like the secret lover in a farce, concealed in a closet right before the clueless cuckold takes the stage. He didn't like it. He didn't like the way their conversation went around and around. Aziraphale calmly suggested that he could find something for Rigel to do on Earth worthy of his skill, Rigel brushing him off, sounding more and more like a bundle of nerves each time. Crowley thought that Aziraphale was trying to offer the other angel a way to back out and save face but he was also, by necessity, skirting closer and closer each time to acknowledging that he had already figured out what was really going on, and the game would change once that card was revealed.

There was a crash as a stack of books toppled to the ground. Crowley blinked at them. He hadn't done that. He hadn't even done that! It had been a leaning tower of books Aziraphale had been in the process of sorting through when this whole mess began and it had chosen this exact moment to succumb to gravity's advances?

“Who goes there?” Rigel called

“Rigel, wait!” Aziraphale got to his feet. Aziraphale didn't think this was the distraction. He had a horrible feeling that Crowley was still right behind that door and that that would be a very bad place for Rigel to find him.

“Sit down Aziraphale. I will deal with it,” Rigel did not slow his pace.

“No!” Aziraphale cried. “Stop this ridiculous charade!”

That had the desired effect. Rigel froze and slowly turned to face the other angel.

“I know what's been going on Rigel. I know you are the one causing my 'condition'.”

“You are feverish,” Rigel said slowly, reaching into his pocket. “Not in your right mind. Don't embarrass yourself with such--”

“Put me in sheer agony for a full day before you even bother to turn up, then swoop in and make yourself out to be the hero,” Aziraphale found himself growing flushed. Better wade right in, he decided. He had tried every possible nice, understanding, or indirect approach already. Perhaps it was time to simply confront Rigel with the truth of his actions and hope he had the capacity for repentance once he couldn't deny anymore. “And then you have the audacity to call me 'brother' and to call yourself a healer. I suppose the idea was that I would be too worn down and desperate by then to question anything you said. You stand before a Principality, knave.”

Rigel stood frozen for a moment after this speech. The principality held his gaze defiantly. Aziraphale knew this was the moment of truth. Rigel could still back down and this could all be over.

But the moment stretched on, neither moving, each trying to stare the other down, until a pleading look flickered across Aziraphale's face. It was _please just give up. Don't do this to yourself. Please don't make me do that to you_, but Rigel mistook it for capitulation.

“No,” he said calmly. “That's not what happened.”

Rigel stalked forward. Everything was still under control. Aziraphale was weak and was still his to

use, he only needed to be reminded of it. He grabbed the other angel's forearm hard enough to make him cry out. “You're wrong--” he snarled.

But got no further. Crowley burst from his hiding place and struck him with a typewriter, sending Rigel crashing to the floor.

“Keep your fucking hands off of him!” Crowley hissed, planting himself between Rigel and Aziraphale.

“Oh Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered. “What happened to a distraction?”

Rigel did appear at least temporarily distracted though, as he struggled to pick himself off the floor.

“Call your people, Angel. He's not giving us any other choice.”

Aziraphale nodded sadly and backed towards the supplies. “You'll have to get out of the building before I make connection. There will be a burst of holy energy; I can't have you hurt.”

Aziraphale moved a rug out of the way and began to draw on the floor. What a mess this whole thing was. How would he explain away the sudden appearance of a demon in his shop? Rigel would report it, if he regained his wits, which Crowley was standing ready to knock out of him again. Just deny? Call his tormentor a fabulist, inventing wild fancies? Would that work?

Despite Crowley's best efforts, Rigel regained his senses enough to fling himself into the demon, bringing Crowley down to his level. They grappled on the floor, snarling and cursing, until Rigel caught sight of what Aziraphale was doing. Rigel reached for the scrap of fabric in his pocket, even though it meant letting the feral snake demon get both hands around his neck, and concentrated on bringing Aziraphale down.

Aziraphale screamed and sank to the ground, clutching at his head as if it were about to explode. The snake demon snarled and began to throttle his opponent. “Stop it!” he raged. “Let him go! I'll kill you!”

Rigel did pause for a moment, stunned as he only now fully realized the dynamic at play here. That this demon was here expressly to aid Aziraphale. Then he glared at the demon while he concentrated on making Aziraphale writhe and scream in agony on the ground a few meters away.

Crowley frantically squeezed Rigel's neck for another few seconds but Rigel hadn't been used to breathing very long anyway and found it an easy habit to drop. He grinned at the demon. Crowley removed his hands from Rigel's neck and held them up in surrender instead, as he backed away.

“OK, stop,” the demon croaked.

Rigel complied and Aziraphale stopped screaming and began to pant for breath instead. Rigel rose to his feet, still grinning, and manifested a sword from the air. It was an unadorned steel blade except that it glowed just a bit with a faint blue light. It was a holy weapon.

“Wait Rigel, please,” Aziraphale half ran, half crawled in order to place himself between that blade and Crowley. “We can talk about this like two rational-.”

“No! No more of your talk!” A few moments ago Rigel had been a man confronted directly with his crimes, mortified to his soul by accusations he knew to be true even as he denied them.

Now the sudden revelation of his victim's far more heinous crime offered to relieve him of that burden and replace it with a sense of pure, righteous fury, a state he was much more at home with. He grabbed the opportunity and threw himself into the role of divine avenger. He grabbed Aziraphale by the hair and threw him into a bookcase.

“Traitor! Filth! You call me a villain when you are the one who is in league with a demon! He will die and you will do as I say! You will tell heaven that you can't do without me or I will hurt you until you beg me to let you die too!”

Rigel advanced on Aziraphale as he lay sprawled on the floor, his face broadcasting a sudden burning desire to land a few hard kicks in his former compatriot's soft underbelly.

Crowley came at him with a heavy brass lamp, like some kind of a desperate idiot, Aziraphale thought. The sword would be through it like butter and he couldn't allow it. He picked up a heavy volume, a leather bound dictionary, and hurled it at Rigel. The spine connected with his face, knocking the other angel back a step and sending blood gushing out of his nose. Crowley brought the lamp down and Rigel dropped the sword practically into Aziraphale's hands.

This time Crowley took a second to reach into Rigel's pocket and rescue Aziraphale's bookmark before commencing to wail on his opponent. Aziraphale limped back toward the circle he had drawn, using the sword for support until he could collapse to his knees next to it.

“Crowley! Go out the window!” Aziraphale cried. The sword had enough divine energy to activate the circle without the need for candles or incense and he held it ready to drive into the wood floor as soon as Crowley was clear.

For the second time in 24 hours, Crowley flung himself out of a window and into the alley next to Aziraphale's shop. A flash of pale blue light immediately followed and Crowley landed and lay still for a moment, listening.

There was no sound from inside and he peered into the window. Both of the angels were gone. Everything was still except for a few pieces of paper knocked loose in the conflict that now fluttered slightly in the breeze from the window.

Crowley pulled himself back through the window and walked unsteadily to an armchair he could plunk himself down in and wait. Wait for Aziraphale to explain to his people what Rigel had done and--

Crowley froze, suddenly realizing what Aziraphale already had, that they would have to reckon with what Rigel has witnessed as well, that Rigel wouldn't feel any qualms about disclosing Crowley's part in what had happened. _Traitor-- Filth---_ Rigel's words rang in his ears and it was far too easy to imagine them becoming a chorus, picked up by every angel in heaven. Crowley sank claws into the arm of the easy chair and and groaned. Oh no, oh God please no. That couldn't be how it would end; he was supposed to save Aziraphale, not get him damned. Crowley began to sob. No, they couldn't be that cruel, so someone so soft, who had never meant any harm to anyone. Of course they could!

After what seemed like a lifetime, there was a flare of white light within the circle, more contained than before. A doorway this time, instead of a bomb, and then Aziraphale was there in the light, standing but looking like that wouldn't last long.

Crowley rushed to catch him and almost got there before the light faded in his haste. He clutched at his angel, catching his upper arms, and felt how good and solid his flesh was before gathering him up in his arms and carrying him a little ways to a corner where they could collapse to the ground together.

Crowley pulled Aziraphale in tight, overcome with the need to shelter him. He only released his hold a fraction to tilt Aziraphale's face up and see his eyes. If they were changed, Crowley decided, he would never forgive himself for the pain and humiliation he had caused, but he also wouldn't flinch. He wouldn't have Aziraphale believe that anything of importance had changed, because it hadn't.

But they were completely unchanged. They were Aziraphale's beautiful eyes. Crowley was so relived that he pressed a kiss to Aziraphale's forehead, and then another and another and another. He couldn't stop himself and Aziraphale was far too worn down and hurt and recently terrified out of his mind and in need of comfort to resist, when Crowley's mouth was so very near, tilting his face up to catch the next kiss on his own.

Crowley was shocked but he kissed him again, carried away by momentum, before pausing to look at him.

“Don't cry my dear,” Aziraphale looked up at him and reached up to touch his tear streaked face. “My dear, my love.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley sobbed and kissed him again, deeply, a kiss full of 6,000 years worth of longing, admiration, tenderness, lust, love.

***********

Crowley looked over the memo one more time before deciding it was ready to send in. It detailed how Crowley had masterminded the fall of the angel Rigel, after entrapping him into a web of lies and paranoid fancies, until he had been driven to turn against a (completely innocent and randomly selected) fellow angel (who hadn't done any of the things Rigel thought but had just happened to be in the area and knew nothing at all about the plot).

It also mentioned, as an aside, that another demon named Spispirior had provided a very small amount of help. It was exactly the way a demon who was trying to exaggerate his own role and downplay the contribution of another party before they got their own account in, would have written it. He was sure that whoever read it couldn't help but reach the conclusion that Spispirior was the one owed a commendation. Crowley would write her a note next to let her know that she now owed him a very large favor.

Aziraphale had told Crowley, before passing out from exhaustion, what had happened after the two angels were transported to Heaven. It turned out that Rigel's crime, which he had been so desperate to escape from, had been social climbing.

It was not at all welcome or tolerated for an angel to try to get above his station. There were nine choirs of angel in heaven and there was no room for an angel who dreamed of moving up to archangel. So, when Aziraphale, a principality, had brought accusations against Rigel, a mere angel of the lowest choir, his story had been accepted as the truth, as simply as that.

Crowley decided that wouldn't hurt to be able to call in a favor or two, in the event that the newly minted demon Rigel ever managed to social climb his way back to Earth.

Crowley remembered the bookmark he had pocketed during the fight and took it out to give back to Aziraphale but paused when he saw it. It was black, though faded with age, handwoven but very luxurious for the time, with a pattern of small red snakes embroidered on it.

“Didn't I have a cloak very much like this once upon a time?” He asked, holding it up and walking towards the couch, where Aziraphale had only shown signs of waking up a few minutes ago. “I had wondered what happened to it.”

Aziraphale blushed. “You gave it to me. Loaned it to me. Because I was cold. I meant to give it back but kept forgetting....And I figured after a while that it was out of style and you wouldn't want it anymore anyway.”

“Hmm, did you wear it...and think about me?” Crowley placed a knee next to Aziraphale's hip and leaned in close, savoring the way the angel's eyes widened and his breath hitched, before placing a chaste peck on his forehead and withdrawing with a wink. The demon, after 6,000 years, found that he didn't want to rush; not when slowly teasing apart the border between them was so enjoyable. Perhaps now he would be the one to make Aziraphale wait.

“I love you Crowley,” Aziraphale said shyly. “Will you --keep me company?”

The couch had, by some miracle, grown wide enough to accommodate another body and Crowley slithered under the blankets and all but coiled himself around Aziraphale before he could restrain himself. Well, he would do his best.


End file.
